


On a Blade's Edge

by rumpledspinster



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), ouat
Genre: Alternate Universe, Androids, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blade Runner AU, F/M, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 06:39:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11663679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumpledspinster/pseuds/rumpledspinster
Summary: A rumbelle AU in which Robert Gold is a retired hit man of sorts known as a blade runner (tasked with hunting down androids that flee in the face of deactivation) who has left that world behind only to be dragged back into it when his son is killed in the line of duty.





	On a Blade's Edge

 

Robert Gold sighed at the gloomy weather outside as he locked up his antiquities shop and headed to his pink Victorian home. His mind was blank as he made his way home as if on autopilot, listening to the rain pattering on the sidewalk and the scrape of the soles of his shoes on the rough cement. As he approached his driveway he saw a familiar face standing on his porch.

 

“Skinner. I’m retired.” Robert huffed as he made to move past him. But the man in the dark overcoat stopped him with a hand on his arm and words that nearly stopped Robert’s heart. “Bae’s dead.”

 

***

 

Robert Gold was retired. He had left the dangerous world of blade running behind him. It wasn’t just the danger involved, it was the insensitivity he had begun to feel. He had started to become as cold as the machines he hunted and it wasn’t a feeling he liked. So, he had left it all behind, but the damage had been done. His son had looked up to him over the years. A single father who was with him during the day, but hunted monsters at night, and so his son had become a blade runner himself.

 

My son is dead. Robert could think of nothing else as he packed and began the drive back to his old beat. His son had been killed by a replicant he was hunting. One of the newer models. They weren’t allowed on earth. They were deemed too dangerous for reasons that no one asked about. A rogue group of them, five of them to be exact, had escaped from their work detail, stolen a ship, and were now on earth for some unknown reason.

 

The one that killed his son, his precious son, was called Zelena. His son had lost his gun in a struggle. The feckin’ machine could have just run, but it crushed his chest and then it crushed his skull.

 

It would be the first that he decommissioned. Then there was the matter of the other three, the fourth having already been killed as it attempted to infiltrate GOT industries, the company that manufactured them. He had been given a file on the rogue replicants that revealed the remaining three were called Jefferson, Alice, and Hyde.

 

Control had given him a weapon that would supposedly be effective on these new replicants, both locating them and destroying them. Well it better damn well be. He sighed at his reflection in the shiny gold doors of the elevator as he made his way up to Maurice French’s office. A man that he held no good will toward since it was he who ran the company responsible for the feckin’ monsters in the first place. The doors opened and Robert rolled his eyes at the décor of this floor. God, he has tacky taste. A man with money who can’t help but flaunt it.

 

Maurice met him at the office door and pointed out a seat. “So, you say you have a weapon that you believe will lead you to one of the newer model replicants and kill them.”

 

Robert was steely eyed and stony as he replied, “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

 

Maurice smiled in a sinister way that had Robert on edge. He watched as Mr. French pushed a button on his phone and said, “Belle, my office now.”

 

Maurice looked up at him with a sly look, “Let’s test this new device of yours on a human first, just to see how accurate it’s replicant detecting is. We wouldn’t want it giving you false readings.”

 

A young woman with bright blue eyes, chestnut curls, and pale skin made her way into the office meekly.

 

Maurice didn’t even look at her, instead he kept his gaze on Gold. “Begin you’re test.”

 

The woman called Belle looked confused and perhaps a bit terrified as Robert asked for her to look at him. He began to scan her and huffed in frustration as the device seemed to be having trouble deciding if she were human or replicant. Perhaps this damn thing is useless he thought, but at last it came to a determination. Replicant.

 

Robert sighed, “Well, it says she’s a replicant so I guess the thing is a piece of crap.”

 

But to his ire, Maurice smiled widely in a menacing way. “On the contrary. It seems to be working fine.”

 

Robert looked at the man in momentary confusion and then to the petite woman known as Belle and realization began to dawn on him as he saw why this new model of replicant was banned on earth. A monster in human skin. He sneered at the cursed thing in disgust.

Belle looked utterly confused and terrified. “What are you saying Papa?”

 

Mr. French looked disgusted, “I’m not your ‘Papa’. My late wife built you out of grief for all the children she miscarried. Her and her partners, nutters the both of them, thought they could smother their grief with you monstrosities. You were one of their prototypes. I indulged her out of love, but when she died I put a stop to the madness. I destroyed the other prototypes and sent the finished models off to a mining colony on Mars.”

 

Belle was shaking as she stumbled back into a wall. “B-but I have memories…”

 

Maurice laughed harshly, “She programmed you with them. Her and her idiotic team honestly thought that it was a good idea to give machines emotions, circuitry to mimic the human brain and capable of adapting to new information, and internal mechanics to mimic human organs. Well you know what the result was? Neurotic machines!”

 

Belle looked as if she may crumple to the ground as she seemed to stare off at nothing, silent tears streaming down her cheeks to her agape mouth. “I…I’m…b-but…”

 

Maurice rolled his eyes at her struggle to make sense of everything, “Your false memories tell you you’re how old? Thirty-two. You’ve only existed for a handful of years. Your whole existence is a lie! I only kept you around as long as I have because I couldn’t bring myself to destroy the last thing that she had created, but now I don’t have to because replicants are banned on earth.” He looked to Gold with a manic smile on his face and Robert felt as if he might be sick.

 

***

Robert led Belle to the elevator by the elbow. Maurice French had seemed disappointed that Gold had not destroyed the replicant right there in the office. The sick bastard. Robert knew what it looked like to kill a replicant. Despite their inhuman looks, there was always light behind their eyes as they pleaded for their existence. As if his job hadn’t been hard enough, now he would have to execute ones that wore flesh and had synthetic blood running in their artificial veins. He had seen in the office how this one seemed to have it’s so called emotions right under the surface. His chest felt tight as he thought of how she would beg, cry, scream. Her blood… it would run red. He hated these monsters, but he couldn’t kill this one like that. The door to the elevator opened and he led her out on to the dark and foggy street. He shoved her forward, “Go.”

 

The replicant known as Belle was shaking, “What?”

 

Robert’s voice was tired and cold as he repeated, “Go. Now. You’re not going to get another chance after this.”

 

She seemed to understand his meaning as she saw his hand hover over the butt of his weapon. She nodded and turned. She ran off into the darkness and he turned away.

 

He returned to his son’s apartment. He would be staying here until this whole thing was over and then… He sighed as he tried to empty his mind of thoughts. He would deal with the trauma of cleaning the small apartment out when the time came.

 

He called Skinner and talked to him about the meeting. Skinner replied that Mr. French had called Control after said meeting, to report Belle as an illegal replicant. Then of course the question came. “Did you decommission it?”

 

Robert took a swig of scotch, “I gave it a head start.”

 

Skinner seemed to sense there was something to that decision, but he didn’t push it. “Well, I think I know their motivation. It seems that he implanted a self-destruct in them. They shut down permanently five years after they are activated. Apparently, that was the only thing he could do because they were designed to be perpetual, up until their parts begin to give out. So, he implanted a self-destruct and set it for the shortest amount of time the system would let him choose. Then he shipped them off to work until they destruct.”

 

Robert rubbed his head as a headache started to nag at him. The whole plot seemed to be taking shape now in his thoughts. Sentient machines, machines with emotions, they begin to see others like them begin to destruct. They are intuitive. They put together the facts and realize what their creator has done. So, they come back for revenge? No. They come back because they fear death.

 

“They’re going to go after French.”

 

Skinner agreed, “That seems the most likely target.”

Robert took another swig of scotch. “I want to know about French’s wife and her team. The ones who created these things.”

 

“I’ll see what I can find.”

 

***

 

Robert couldn’t sleep. He was struggling to keep his thoughts blank and off his grief. He decided he would take a walk and try to refocus on the case at hand.

 

He walked along the damp sidewalk, listening to his footfalls and watching as his feet made their way from the shadows to the eerie blue glow of the street lamps and back to the shadows. He stopped all of a sudden, his senses telling him that he was in danger. Years of blade running had left him with heightened senses and right now they were telling him that he was being hunted. He dodged a fist, his reflexes sensing it a mere millisecond before it would have landed. He spun toward his attacker, pushing off his back so that he was facing him. His weapon was in his hand and pointed at the attacker, but before he could pull the trigger it was kicked out of his hand by a roundhouse kick. He jumped back from another kick and saw that his attacker was the replicant known as Hyde. He continued to dodge the machine's attacks, but he would need his weapon if he was going to end this fight with his life.

 

Suddenly the air was split by something. Electricity seemed to buzz in the air and the replicant known as Hyde stopped, fell to his knees and began to convulse. Blood bubbled up out of his mouth as he grasped at his chest and his body contorted in agony, he screamed in pain and then it was over. Robert looked past Hyde to see the face of his savior. The replicant known as Belle stood there, his gun in her hand.

 

***

 

She was still as a statue as he gently took the gun from her. This was as close as he had ever been to one of her kind. She seemed no different from himself. There was always a sense of uncanny valley with these things, but not this time. It should unnerve him. He watched her as she seemed to come back to life. Her lips parted and she began to shake like a leaf. Tears began to stream down her face as she stumbled backward. She was going to bolt. He should let her, but for reasons he didn’t understand he stopped her. He caught her in his arms and held her. She was warm, soft. She felt fragile in his arms. Human. He took her back to his apartment. She sat down at the small kitchen table and asked for a cup of tea. He made it for her and sat across from her. Watching as she brought the cup to her lips with trembling hands and sipped at it.

 

He didn’t ask her anything, but she answered his unasked questions all the same. “I was looking for you. I didn’t know where else to go. I saw him fight you. He was going to kill you. Your weapon slid to my feet. I felt like… like I was outside of my body, like I wasn’t in control… oh god I killed him.” She began to shake even harder and he feared she might shake apart. He got out of his seat and grounded her with his hands on her shoulders. “He was going to be dead soon anyway. His time was up regardless.” Robert continued to gently push down on her shoulders as he waited for her to calm down. A dissociative episode. That’s what she had experienced. Neurotic machines.

 

Belle calmed and Robert retook his seat across from her. “Why did you come looking for me?” he asked.

 

She sighed. “I…I didn’t know who I was anymore. It was all a lie. I needed… I needed to know why.” She sipped her tea and continued, “I hacked into the GOT servers. My mother… my creator, Collette French worked with two other robotic engineers. Victor Franks and Geppetto Marionette. All of them were dealing with grief. She built me as the child she always wanted, Victor built a duplicate of his dead brother, and Geppetto built a duplicate of his son who had died of terminal cancer.”

 

Robert took a deep breath as he considered her words. He understood the reasons for their actions. “Why not make you a child? Why make you an adult?’’

 

Belle looked down at her hands. “They were able to duplicate the process of aging, but not growth. So, I was created to resemble what would have been the end of my growth if I were…,” she sighed. “I am designed to grow old.”

 

Robert was hit with a sudden realization. “You’ll be the last one. That’s why French turned you over the way he did. She must have designed you with a failsafe against tampering. He isn’t worried about the others because their time will soon be up, but you…”

 

Belle seemed to realize what he was saying, “That’s why he killed the others.”

Robert looked up at her then, “What others?”

“The other prototypes. He destroyed them. That's what led to Geppetto's nervous breakdown and Victor died under suspicious circumstances not too long after that.”

 

Belle lowered her head to her hands. “What the hell is the point of me? I…I’m…” she sputtered and began to sob, “A freaking toaster has a purpose! Machines have purpose. What the hell am I?”

 

Robert didn’t even think as he stood and took her into his arms he held her as she sobbed and he shushed into her hair. He wasn’t sure exactly when it happened, but at some point, he had stopped thinking of her as a thing and had begun to think of her as person. But if she was a person than what about the other two. As he held her he thought about Collette, Victor, and Geppetto. Having just lost his son he understood their motivation, but they had let their grief stop them from seeing the bigger picture. They had gone too far. In the past, replicants had gone rogue out of self-preservation. They had some innate drive to stay in existence in a world that had deemed them no longer useful. And now you give those same creations emotions, you mimic the human brain and nervous system. Perhaps they thought it would be alright because their creations would be loved, but what of the rest of them? The ones sent to the mining colony off world? They recreated the human spirit and then are surprised when it fights back against its enslavement... when it fights for its ability to live.

 

Belle sighed and snuggled against Robert’s chest. “All of my memories of being loved, of being wanted… they’re all lies. I saw my activation date. I’ve existed for all of seven years. My… Collette died within a few days of my activation. I suppose I understand some of his hatred toward me now. He probably thinks that all of the time and effort she put into me is what killed her.”

 

Robert’s mind was blank and his body seemed to move of its own volition as he brought his hand under her chin and tilted her face up. He kissed her passionately and his body seemed to be spurred on by her own sounds of pleasure and her hand now massaging his scalp and holding him to her. She was warm, so warm, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap himself up in her as if she were a sheet of silk. No words were spoken as they tore each other’s clothes off and she hopped into his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her to the small bedroom. It was dimly lit by the street lights that shined through the cracked blinds leaving stripped shadows on the bed. He laid her down upon the soft comforter and lay on top of her. They made love to each other. Each of them taking the warmth and security that they so desperately needed from each other in that moment.

 

Their coupling was a blur of emotions, sensations, but when it was over there was a sense of security. For the first time, Belle felt loved and most importantly she felt human. Robert had given her back her humanity.

Robert felt as if he could breathe again as he held Belle in his arms. His grief for Bae was still there and raw, but now he felt as if he had purpose in his life once again. And he no longer felt alone. He would protect her, his Belle, for as long as he drew breath.

 

***

Belle was asleep when Skinner called. Robert told Skinner what had happened with Belle and the information she had provided. Skinner was quiet on the other end and Robert braced himself for the speech he was sure to get about staying distant and that replicants no matter how life like are not human, but that speech didn’t come.

 

Skinner’s voice was grave as he replied, “If not you, then it will be someone else.” Skinner hung up and sent the info Robert had requested. Robert looked it over and saw that there was an address for Mr. Geppetto Marionette.

 

Robert sighed, a sound of reluctance as he left the warm bed he and Belle shared and pulled on his clothes. He grabbed his weapon and made his way to the address.

 

When he reached the home of Mr. Marionette he saw that the replicants must have beat him to it. The door having been forced in. Robert drew his weapon and carefully made his way into the home. Everywhere he looked there were toys. He continued on and saw a workbench with designs and half made toys strewn about. So, he had gone on to become a toy maker. Then he saw the remains of the replicant known as Alice on the floor. Her contorted body was reminiscent of what was left of Hyde. Robert shuddered as he realized fully what had driven these replicants to come back to earth. Not only were they watching their kind die, but they were watching their kind die horrifically knowing that the same fate awaited them.

 

Mr. Marionette was nowhere to be seen so Robert quickly made his way to the well-fortified home of Maurice French. But it was perhaps not as fortified as he thought because when he arrived the security gate and the front door were wide open. His weapon drawn he quickly made his way to the master bedroom suite and saw the replicant known as Jefferson standing, bloody hands dripping over the body of Mr. French.

 

The replicant seemed to sense him as his head looked up from his kill, but he did not turn to face Gold as he spoke. “I crushed his skull.”

 

Robert carefully began to cross the room, “I can see that.”

 

The voice of the man before him, because he must be a man to sound so broken, sobbed, “All I wanted was to save her. If not the both of us, at least her.”

 

“Alice?”

 

Jefferson turned and fell to his knees as he screamed out in frustrated anger and sorrow. Robert approached him slowly, his weapon returned to its holster. “You were in love?”

 

Jefferson nodded. “I had to try to save her. She was my world. Five years might seem like such an insignificant amount of time, but we lived and experienced more in that amount of time then most of you ever will.” Jefferson inhaled sharply trying in vain to hold back his tears, “Eternity with her wouldn’t have been long enough, but I would have settled for a lifetime.”

 

Robert knelt beside Jefferson. “What happened to Mr. Marionette?”

 

Jefferson sat back on his heels. “I used him to get in here and then I let him go.”

 

Robert nodded, “It was kind of you to show him mercy.”

 

Jefferson stared down at his hands.

 

Robert put a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “How long do you have?”

 

Jefferson looked over at Robert with resigned calm. “A few hours.”

 

Robert sighed sadly. He felt for Jefferson. Life was inherently unfair, but the hand that these replicants had been dealt seemed particularly cruel. Robert helped Jefferson to his feet and led him out of the gaudy home of the monster that had been Mr. French.

 

They headed back to Mr. Marionette’s home and Robert watched as a quiet Jefferson lifted his Alice into his arms. Robert drove them both to the edge of the forest. Jefferson looked tearfully at Robert for a moment and then quietly uttered, “Thank you.” He turned and headed off into the trees.

 

Robert called Skinner as he began to drive back to his apartment. “The job is done. The threat is gone.” Robert sighed tiredly, “And I’m done. No more living my life running on a blade’s edge.”

 

“Rightly so, after all we must make the most of the time we are given. It’s just too bad that she has to die, but then again, so must we all.”

 

Robert felt as if his heart might explode in his chest at Skinner’s words. Belle.

 

He rushed back to the apartment as fast as he could. Skinner’s words ringing in his ears. If not you, then it will be someone else.

 

He is on full alert as he sees the door to his apartment ajar. He draws his weapon and carefully makes his way into the apartment. He calls out for Belle, but there is no answer. He makes his way into the bedroom. In the dim, fractured light, he sees Belle’s still body covered with a sheet. With trembling fingers, he pulls the sheet back and carefully caresses her face. To his great relief she sighs in her sleep.

 

He notices a folder sticking out from under his pillow. He pulls it out and sees his name scrawled across it in Skinner’s slanted handwriting. He opens it and sees that Skinner has created a new identity for Belle, one in which they have been married for the last seven years. Belle Gold.

 

Robert collapsed onto the bed in exhausted shock. Skinner was here. He could have easily killed Belle, but he had spared her. Robert smiled. Skinner’s words came back to Robert.

“Rightly so, after all we must make the most of the time we are given. It’s just too bad that she has to die, but then again, so must we all.”

 

You arse. Robert chuckled quietly. He looked over at Belle with love filled eyes.

 

They would make the most of the time they were given.

 

 

 


End file.
